In the vehicle body side structure disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-206244 (JP-A 2001-206244), a door beam is provided along a vehicle body longitudinal direction to an inside part of a door, a front end of the door beam is provided in proximity to a hinge, and a reinforcing member is provided on the vehicle-forward side of the hinge (i.e. in a front part of the vehicle body). The rigidity of the front part of the vehicle body can be increased by providing the reinforcing member to the side of the hinge facing the front of the vehicle body (front part of the vehicle body).
However, in this vehicle body side structure, since the front end of the door beam is provided in proximity to the hinge, the front end of the door beam is separated from the hinge. Therefore, a load acted on the hinge from the front of the vehicle body cannot be efficiently transferred to the door beam via the front end of the door beam.
Furthermore, the reinforcing member provided on the side of the hinge facing the front of the vehicle body is joined to a pillar in a state of being offset from the door beam in a vehicle width direction. The door (door beam) is provided to this pillar via the hinge. Therefore, a load acted on the reinforcing member from the front of the vehicle body is transferred to the door beam via the pillar. Thus, it is difficult to efficiently transfer the load to the door and disperse the load by transferring the load to the door beam via the pillar.
Thus, since it is difficult to efficiently transfer the load acting from the front of the vehicle body to the door beam and disperse the load, the load acting from the front of the vehicle body must be borne by the vehicle body (particularly a side sill). Consequently, in order to insure rigidity in the side sill, the side sill must be reinforced by a reinforcing member, and this has been an obstacle to minimizing the weight of the side sill (vehicle body).